The Final Leg

Last week we made the trip from the Philippines to Salem. Now it's time for the last leg of our journey home. In the morning (my alarm is set for 3:15 a.m.) we will head to Portland to board a plane bound for home. We are excited (and almost packed).

We spent the afternoon saying good-bye to friends we have made along this journey. We pray that our paths will cross again one day - if not, we will see you on the other side of this life. So many of you have been a part of the work God has done in our lives, THANK YOU!

It has been a long time and all of us are looking forward to seeing family and friends. We are eager to share the stories (and pictures, lots of pictures) of what we have seen God do in us, through us, and around us. We certainly serve the incredible Redeemer!

Relying on His redemption and grace,

Tom

Re-entry

We are mostly over jet-lag but adjusting from culture shock is another story. Words can not express the challenges of coming back after being on the other side of the world. Take church for example, through the gracious loan of a van we were able to return to the church we have been attending here in Salem. Beautiful plush surroundings, padded seats filled with people sipping lattes and smoothies...Don't get me wrong it is nice to know that if you or one of your children need a bathroom you don't need to go around behind the building, the whole service was in English so I could understand everything without the aid of a translater, and there was an inspiring message preached. Also it was wonderful to see so many men as few were involved in the churches of the Philippines. I just hope that we, and notice that means me included, do not get so focused on being comfortable that we lose focus on what this church thing is all about...
because it's not about me or you but Him.
Lisa

Safely in Salem

After 78 hours or so of travel (okay, so I may be exaggerating a bit) we are safely in Salem. Thanks for your prayers while we traveled and for the last several months as we have followed Jesus on this grand adventure.

After getting our stuff unloaded and moved into our home for the next several days, we were all in bed by about 3:30 a.m. We drug ourselves out of bed (I did most of the dragging, most everyone else was drug) about 9:30 and had some breakfast. After lunch we took a long nap. Hopefully we will all be able to sleep tonight and be well adjusted in time for the time change tomorrow night :0).

Beginning tomorrow night, we will debrief with our team about our experience. Most of our team, anyway. We miss Kevin and Becky's gang. (But Lisa is thinking of Becky right now as she eats her microwave popcorn.)

We are only 5 days and two flights from home now!

Grace,
Tom

One More Wake-Up!

There was a comment on yesterday's blog from Shari, a co-worker from the plant. (Boy, that already seems like such a long time ago.) She asked if I was interested in doing one more outage. For those of you who may not know, outage is a month or two of 75 hour weeks. (Or for one dark period, 3 years of 60 - 75 hour weeks.) I assure you, outage was not one of the highlights of my former occupation. Tomorrow begins an intensive training time at the plant as contract workers are brought in to support the massive amount of work.

For my family, tomorrow marks the end of an intensive time of training and the beginning of critical path work. It is our turn to be among the workers contracted to support the job.

He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

Luke 10:2

For the entirety of my career at the plant, I was confident that God had placed me in the harvest field of the plant. Often I fought against it. Sometimes I accepted it, with much whining and grumbling. But sometimes, I was faithful to the call He puts on our hearts:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Matthew 28:19-20

It is no question as to whether we, as followers of Christ, have His call to make disciples. The only real question before us is where we are to go. Again, the question is not whether we are to go. We are to go. We are to make disciples.

As I said earlier, my willingness often faltered in making disciples in the place He sent me. But He is gracious. He can, and does, work through our weakness. As He enabled me to follow Him, He was able to use me to help others on their journey. Now He has called me and my family to go somewhere other than what has always been home. This is nothing more than the call He has placed on your heart to be a witness of His glory and love where you are.

Even as I plead for your prayers, I pray that His Spirit will guide you. May you be bold to share the love and glory of the Father with those whom have not yet known Him. May His grace enable you to lift up those who have stumbled in their walk with Him. May the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for our redemption be revealed once again to the inmost place of your spirit.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people,
Tom

Prayer and Packing

This morning our friend Fred made arrangements to take our family to the Vineyard. (Our van is traveling home with Grandma and Grandpa and you don't just throw an extra six people into most vehicles.) It was an exciting morning. They just moved into their new building. We had been attending there all summer. So it was great that it worked out for us to see it before we left. At the conclusion of the service they prayed for Fred, his wife Carol, our family, and Wes, another YWAMer who will be traveling to the Philippines with us.

Much of the rest of the day was spent packing. Most of the hard work was done before Mom and Dad took the van. We sent a lot of stuff back home with them. But there still was a little decision making to do. Now we just need to wait until we do a bit more laundry on Tuesday morning.

Below is a list of our team. Please keep us in prayer as we head into our last days of preparation. (CDTS - Crossroads Discipleship Training School; COD - Children of Destiny)

Howard - CDTS leader
Sue - CDTS leader
Denny - CDTS staff
Twink - CDTS staff
Harry - CDTS staff - served long-term in the Philippines
Dee - CDTS staff - served long-term in the Philippines
Fred - CDTS staff/COD staff
Carol - CDTS staff/COD leader
Tom - CDTS student - Me
Lisa - CDTS student - The love of my life
Adriana - COD student - Intellectual Naturalist
Alexie - COD student - Miss Congeniality
Alayna - COD student - Monkey Girl
Annalise - COD student - Cute Butterfly
Kevin - CDTS student
Becky - CDTS student
Josh - COD student
Xander - COD student
Jesse - COD student
Ben - COD student
Matthew - COD student
Abby - COD student
Liz - CDTS student
Anna - COD student
Leon - CDTS student
Natalie - CDTS student
Nat - CDTS student
Shirley - CDTS student
Emerald - CDTS student
Ruth - CDTS student
Cynthia - CDTS student
Doc - CDTS student
Wes - YWAM staff on a separate mission, travelling with us

The colors indicate couples/families. I thought that may be helpful as you lift us up in prayer.

Grace,
Tom

What are You Talking About?

This week we all needed to have a 30 minute presentation for our fellow classmates in preparation for teaching we will need to do in the Philippines.

Lisa gave a presentation entitled, A Handful of What I have Learned from My Five Year Old.

My presentation was entitled, What does God Want from Me?

We enjoyed the teaching this week as we listened to the messages God had put on the hearts of our classmates.

Tom

Up in the Air

Had the day off, so might as well entertain ourselves by climbing 15 to 30 feet and hanging around. Yes, we as a family met the challenge of the high circuit of the rope course. This is very physically demanding, and then there 's the fear factor of those of us who prefer to stay on the ground! Everyone but me had previously tackled this. I thought this would be a great team building activity for us to do together. Once up in the air I must say I had second thoughts and wanted to quit. But as I have not let fear keep me from the other rope course elements I wasn't going to do it today.
Lisa
P.S. Annalise was a bit too young for this, so our Butterfly did not fly today.

Current Plans

Just so y'all have a chance to take a look at our plans, we thought we would publish them. Of course, everything is subject to change. But here are our current plans.

• September 4: Leave Salem and begin the journey to Manila, Philippines.
• September 6-7: Shalom Center, Manila
• September 8-26: Niac, Philippines - Valley Cathedral Childrens' Home
• September 26 - October 4: Baguio, Philippines - working with local churches
• October 4: Bontoc & Can-eo - working with local churches
• October 29-31: Shalom Center, Manila
• November 1: Leave Manila bond for Salem, Oregon
• November 5-8: Debriefing
• November 8: Leave Salem and head for home

Since we have started this blog, we have tried to make an entry each day. We are not sure what the availability of the internet will be as we travel. We will do our best to keep you up to date, so continue to check in daily. We would also love to hear from you so we can catch up with what is going on with you before we leave. It would be a great way to spend our free time this weekend.

May God bless all of you for the prayer and financial support you have provided. This journey would not be possible without you allowing God to work through you.

Happy Birthday, Alayna!

Today we celebrated Alayna's birthday. She is 8 years old! Some things were planned by Lisa and I. Some things just happened that way. But whatever the source, it made for a memorable day.

For breakfast, Lisa brought her a waffle with ice cream and candles. At the morning break COD joined us and Lisa served cup cakes. COD then left for an outing for pizza. Awards and more cup cakes followed when they returned.

Later, when they checked the mail slot, there was something mysterious there (in addition to a birthday card from Grammie and Papa). A note that promised surprises if she followed the clues. There were 8 (hmmm, a funny coincidence) clues directing her and her friends to various places around the campus until they found some birthday presents (and popsicles).

Then there was the dance party: an end of school celebration hosted by our friend Shirley (Miss Hospitality - the Hostess with the Mostest).

Quite a day for the birthday girl!

Tom

Commissioned

Tonight at The Rising, our Tuesday night service, the Crossroads Discipleship Training Class was commissioned for our outreach to the Philippines. It was a great send-off. The COD kids lead the worship. The training director shared some encouraging words for the class and the base before his wife danced. It was a beautiful presentation of prayer. Then, of course, prayers were offered on our behalf.


Our departure is just around the corner. Classmates are making preparations. In class we are all giving presentations as practice for potential opportunities in the Philippines. Lisa and I will present tomorrow, but there were some stirring presentations made today.

Our classmate, Emerald, had to fly home for an unexpected medical procedure yesterday. But we understand she is doing well and expects to return on Thursday. Please pray for the physical well-being of our team. As a team, we have already faced a number of medical issues, including an arrow to the head. God is bringing us through all of these issues, and so many more, but we rely on the prayers of others on our behalf.

Grace,
Tom

Good-bye Grandma & Grandpa

My parents left for an across the country tour back home this morning. It was a good week with them. What a blessing to be able to spend some time with them before we head to the Philippines.

Grace,
Tom

Silver Falls

We really wanted to make a special day out of Grandpa and Grandma's last full day with us. So we headed downtown . Salem has a beautiful carousel downtown. (The girls went there after the World Beat Festival.) Grandma was much more relaxed about this ride than she was anything that is offered at the ropes course!



For lunch we went to McDonald's. The girls were very excited. It has been a long time for them to be without those golden arches. Grandpa and Grandma helped us celebrate Alayna's birthday since they won't be with us next week.


Then it was off to Silver Falls. What a beautiful place! This is a must see if you ever make it to this part of the country. We hiked the path around behind South Falls. Then back up to the creek to get our feet wet.


When we got back, Lisa and I did a quick sort through our things. Grandpa and Grandma are driving our van back to the midwest for us as they tour the country. So we are sending along all of the stuff we don't expect to need when we depart for the Philippines. Sort of a pre-packing shakedown.

Only 9 more wake-ups until we head over the Pacific on the next part of the adventure!

Grace,
Tom

Salmon Falls

Today the COD class went to Salmon Falls. Grandma and Grandpa were asked to go along. Because they were short of staff today, I was asked to go along as well. So I played hookie for the last part of class and went to play.

It was absolutely beautiful! The kids had a great time climbing on the rocks and playing in the water. Grandpa even enjoyed climbing on the rocks while Grandma played in the water.






Grace,
Tom

Needs a Bit More than a Kiss

Tonight we got to tour Salem Hospital Urgent Care. The doctor looked at our adorable 5-year-old with blood down the side of her head. I think the doctor thought we were joking when we answered his question, "How did this happen?"

As nonchalantly as possible, I replied, "She got shot with an arrow." Several of the young people on base have entertained themselves with homemade bows and arrows and one of the young archers accidentally struck her.

The doctor said, "A little lower and it would have been a bad story." (Of course, we had already thought about this and expressed our gratefulness. You know the line, "It's always fun until someone puts out an eye.")

Annalise was very brave. She had stopped crying before we were alerted and didn't cry anymore even when the doctor stuck the seemingly huge needle in her scalp to numb the area. A couple hours after the accident, she happily walked out of the exam room sporting 3 stitches and waving her 2 stickers. The only time she was sad was when we told her she wouldn't be able to play in the river when her class goes on their outing tomorrow.

Now, 3 out of our 4 girls have had stitches and all of them have occurred in the last 2 1/2 years.

English Language and Culture

Tonight the Korean ELC students presented some of the things they have learned. Some of their presentatins were reflective. Others were downright comical. Everybody had a good time. It was a reminder that our time here in Salem is drawing to a close.

Grandma & Grandpa on the Ropes

Wow! Mom did the Flying Squirrel! Can you believe it? She still can't!

Rainy Day

Grandma and Grandpa are getting the full Oregon experience: beaches, whales, and seals yesterday; constant drizzle today.

Grandma made herself very popular with the COD kids as she handed out McDonald's toys she had brought for all of them at the end today's classes.

Grace

Grandma & Grandpa are Here!